Tall Tales / Stories That Could Be True / "... the circus is in town ...) / All the light

We phantoms are assembled at the end of the Rolling Thunder tour.

We started out trying to recover America.

We discovered a certain amount of truth about ourselves.

Old friends who thought their loves had been lost were able to get together and, uh, face each other eye to eye and sing over an electrical microphone to please the desires of myriad young yearners who had been seeking some kind of union and community and saw therein an image of that community.

…

You who saw it all or saw flashes or fragments, take from us some example, try and get yourselves together, clean up your act, find your community, pick up on some kind of redemption of your own consciousness, become more mindful of your own friends, your own work, your own proper meditation, your own proper art, your own beauty. Go out and make it for your own eternity.

(am's note: Allen Ginsberg is shown speaking these words at the end of the film.  He then bows in the Buddhist manner)

Click to read this:

Dylan is confronting us with the difference between the stated idea of America and the present reality of it, in the process asking why, after 200 years, we still haven’t gotten our shit together. The question stands.

(am's note:  Now, in 2019, it's 243 years since 1776. My income doesn't allow for me to subscribe to Netflix.  I am grateful to a friend who made it possible for me to watch "Rolling Thunder Revue:  A Bob Dylan Story")

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

BY William E. Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am

and I don't know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,

but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider—

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

A view of our beautiful earth and our beautiful sky from my porch, and then there is:

"All The Light We Cannot See." 

Easter weekend meditation / Something of a Zen koan / Long before the sky would open

... And Jesus was a sailor

When he walked upon the water

And he spent a long time watching

From his lonely wooden tower

And when he knew for certain

Only drowning men could see him

He said, "All men will be sailors then

Until the sea shall free them"

But he himself was broken

Long before the sky would open

Forsaken, almost human

He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone

And you want to travel with him

And you want to travel blind

And you think maybe you'll trust him

For he's touched your perfect body with his mind ...

(Leonard Cohen, lyrics from "Suzanne")  

Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary.  It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.

(John Lennon)

... You don't need no passport

You don't need no visa

And you don't need to designate or emigrate

Before you can see Jesus ...

... You don't need no church house

And you don't need no temple

You don't need no rosary beads or them books to read

To see that you have fallen

If you open up your heart

You'll see he's right there

Always was and will be

He'll relieve you of your cares ...

(George Harrison, lyrics from "Awaiting On You All"-- 1970)

We don't ask for more cathedrals.  We don't ask for bigger churches or fine gifts.  ... We ask the Church to sacrifice with the people for social change, for justice, and for love of brother.  We don't ask for words. We ask for deeds.  We don't ask for paternalism. We ask for servanthood.

(Cesar Chavez -- Christian, farm worker, labor leader and civil rights activist -- speaking in 1968)

If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth.  If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning.  And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

(Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking in 1955)

Sweet silver angels over the sea

Please come down flying low for me

One time I trusted a stranger

'Cause I heard His sweet song

It was gently enticing me, there was something wrong

When I turned, He was gone

Blinding me, His song remains reminding me

He's a bandit and a heart breaker

My Jesus was a cross maker.

Sweet silver angels over the sea

Please come down flying low for me

He wages war with the devil with a pistol by His side

He's always chasing him out of windows

And He won't give him a place to hide

But he keeps His door open wide

Fighting him, He lights a lamp inviting him

He's a bandit and a heart breaker

My Jesus was a cross maker.

Yeah, Jesus was a cross maker.

(Warren Zevon sang "Jesus Was A Cross Maker," written by Judee Sill)

Martin Scorsese's Jesus in "The Last Temptation of Christ" was a cross maker:

Judas:  If you were me, could you betray your master?

Jesus:  No.  That's why God gave me the easier job -- to be crucified.

Vietnamese Zen Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a book called Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers.  

Although I was raised as a Christian (first in the Lutheran Church and then in the Episcopal Church), I stopped going to church when I was 18 years old.  From that time on, I have explored many religions and spiritual traditions and am grateful for their teachings, but I have not chosen to affiliate myself with any of them.  

I do find the story of Jesus to be a mysterious and compelling one -- something of a Zen koan -- and I continue to listen with all my heart when certain people talk about their understanding of and trust in Jesus.

Listening for an owl before dawn / Hearing a train

If you would like to hear a train and don't have time to listen to birds, go to the end of the video.  My goal was to record the sound of what I thought might be an owl.  The owl remained silent, but at the end of the video, you will hear the sound of a train from three miles away.

I am reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret after having watched Martin Scorsese's "Hugo."  There are trains running through that story, and from that story I have a new appreciation of trains, train stations, clocks, automata, books, children, silent films, Paris in 1931, World War I veterans, writing, drawing,  adventure ...

A KINDER PERSON

Early this morning, I began to think about one of the scenes from Martin Scorsese's film, "The Last Temptation of Christ," the one where Jesus asks Judas to betray him, a betrayal that will result in Jesus' crucifixion.


An outraged disciple, Judas (played by Harvey Keitel): "If you were me, could you betray your master?"

A subdued teacher, Jesus (played by Willem Defoe): "No. That's why God gave me the easier job."


While looking for the above scene with the subdued Jesus, I ended up listening to an earlier scene where Jesus is talking with Judas, and Judas says bluntly,


"I don't believe you."


Was that a conceit by Martin Scorsese?

Martin Scorsese's 1988 film is based on a novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, who also wrote "Zorba the Greek." "The Last Temptation of Christ" is an extraordinary meditation on Kazantzakis' book. The story is not based on the Gospels. It rings true to me. In Gene Siskel's words, "This Jesus is more than a standard misunderstood God we see in most biblical films. This Jesus knows that it is harder to be a good man than to be God."

I don't call myself a Christian or anything else, but each time I re-watch "The Last Temptation of Christ," I meditate on how difficult it can be to discern the right action in complex situations where no clear answers are forthcoming.

"I pray that I can be a kinder person."
(Bob Dylan, from CHRONICLES, VOL 1.)

THE MUSICIANS

Garth Hudson, from an interview by Martin Scorsese in the film, "The Last Waltz":

"There is a view that jazz is 'evil' because it comes from evil people, but actually the greatest priests on 52nd Street and on the streets of New York City were the musicians.

("Imaginary Brothers Listening," painted in gouache and watercolor by Old Girl Of The North Country in 1990)

WAKING UP / THANKSGIVING DAY 1976

"When you awake you will remember ev'rything

you will be hangin' on a string from your...

When you believe, you will relieve the only soul

that you were born with to grow old and never know."

(lyrics from "When You Awake," by Richard Manuel and Robbie Robertson, 1969)

(I always heard the words as "you will BELIEVE WITH ALL YOUR SOUL that you were both with to grow old and never know)

Every so often I watch my VHS copy of Martin Scorsese's film, "The Last Waltz." I had forgotten that "The Last Waltz" was filmed on Thanksgiving Day in 1976. Now it seems highly appropriate that I chose to watch that exuberant concert film during this Thanksgiving weekend more than 30 years later.

The Band:
Rick Danko
Levon Helm
Garth Hudson
Richard Manuel
Robbie Robertson

Master of Ceremonies:
Bill Graham

Poets:
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Michael McClure

Musicians:
Paul Butterfield
Eric Clapton
Neil Diamond
Dr. John
Bob Dylan
Emmylou Harris
Ronnie Hawkins
Joni Mitchell
Van Morrison
The Staples Singers
Ringo Starr
Muddy Waters
Ron Wood
Neil Young

It just occurred to me that "The Last Waltz" took place just a year and a half after the end of the Vietnam War. I can remember, in a clear and visceral way, how profoundly relieved I was when the Vietnam War finally ended. Watching the film, I thought about that short period of time when the United States was not involved in a war.

I was reminded that before my boyfriend was drafted in March of 1969, when we were both 19 years old, he had bought tickets for us and we had driven to San Francisco to see The Band in their debut concert in San Francisco on February 28, 1969. That is one of my many joyful memories of the time we spent together before he was drafted into the Army.

Recent interview with Robbie Robertson

("Morning With Three Suns," gouache and watercolor painting from 1988 by Old Girl Of The North Country)